‘I desperately wanted to be liked at school,” recalls Corbin Shaw. “I was always trying to fit in with this group of boys, which is where a lot of my work stems from.” Explorations of what is expected of young men permeate much of the 24-year-old’s work. Utilising textiles, flags and slogans, masculinity runs through its core. Take the selection of reimagined St George’s flags: “Soften Up Hard Lad” reads one; “I’m Never Going to Be One of the Lads” reads another; the Burberry check backdrop of one has the words “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” hand-stitched on to it.
Shaw’s upbringing on the outskirts of Sheffield, and his exposure to football terraces, boxing gyms and pubs, informs much of his work. His dad encouraged him to be a footballer or a boxer but neither took. “I just wanted to be creative,” he reflects. “I didn’t match up to the expectations of what he wanted me to be as a man. There’s a lot of things I’ve never said to my dad that come out in the work.”
Shaw’s latest project is walking distance from where his dad still works as a welder in Kelham Island, Sheffield. While Shaw is known for creating tactile physical work on a sewing machine, this marks his first-ever digital artwork – just-launched pieces that “capture the spirit of the city”. It is the latest addition to the citywide Augmented Reality art trail, Look Up, which allows the public to view original artworks located on top of numerous city buildings via their phones. Here, Shaw’s work hangs largely above a Sardinian restaurant, loudly proclaiming: “It Will All be Worth it in the End”
After attending Leeds College of Art, Shaw landed in London at Central Saint Martins. “It was a massive culture shock and I was very overwhelmed,” he recalls. “People were a lot smarter than me. I just didn’t have the same art education – I didn’t grow up going to art galleries.” The wealth disparity was eye-opening, too. “It was mental going to a school where people were coming in wearing Gucci and Balenciaga,” he says. “It’s like, how is that even possible?”
But while he was initially resentful about feeling out of place, he soon leaned into his roots, his family and his home town for creative inspiration. “My normal was different from their normal,” he says. “I realised my own experience of life is very valuable and it became my superpower. When I started making work about my family and Sheffield, my mum was like, ‘Why would anyone give a shit about this?’ I was like, ‘Well, I do, and that’s all that matters.’”
Shaw’s first foray into making flags was a St George’s that said “We Should Talk About Our Feelings”. He says it was about his father’s relationship with a friend who took his own life. “He showed me these flags that men had made in the local area in honour of him. It was such an incredible thing. The subtle way these stoic blokes were expressing themselves and pouring their hearts out in these objects. It was beautiful. I thought: what if flags were more about bringing people together?”
A successful period followed: collaborations with photographer Martin Parr, commissions from Manchester queer party Homobloc, solo exhibitions. Then, in 2022, Shaw collaborated with Women’s Aid in a powerful campaign to highlight spikes in domestic abuse during the World Cup with a St George’s Flag that read: “He’s Coming Home”.
While aware of the ugly side of the sport, it’s also one that has brought Shaw a lot of joy and inspiration. “There’s a lot of art that happens in pubs, on the streets or going to football,” he says. “Something I’ve been continuously obsessed with in my practice is exploring spaces where we don’t expect love and tenderness among men. We tend to paint football with this brush of being hypermasculine, violent and segregational but there are moments where things happen that are really gorgeous, such as all these men singing together. It unites people.”
Shaw even left his gallery, Guts, last year to go independent because he felt he was being pulled too far from these principles. “I wanted more autonomy over how my work is priced,” he says. “There’s so many people from football that have inspired my work that couldn’t afford it and that’s not fair. You’ve got to give back to the people that have given you so much.”
Moving forward, Shaw has been deeply motivated by working with groups of year 8 boys back in Sheffield. “We did a flag-making workshop about modern masculinity,” he says. “It was quite scary because there’s these really toxic figureheads such as Andrew Tate who are influencing what they’re saying and doing – they were all talking about the self-made man and the alpha and sigma male. If I can try to combat that with my work, that’s what I need to do. I want to work with as many people as possible in communities to get a message across. I think that’s where my work really shines.”
